Nine Judgments

Leaking Worlds

She turned when the lights went out. Her heart jumped in her chest. Scaredy-cat. Such a bad thrill-seeker.

Then the yelp. Lights on. The joke - self-admonishment - was forgotten.

Mitsuki stared. Akira was bleeding. Blood dripped. Slowly.

And she turned to the painting. Rips and tears. Paint, or blood, or paint that was blood. Douglas was dead.

She turned back.

She opened her mouth but could not speak. There was a buzzing in her ears.

She tried again.

"No shit."

Leaking Worlds

"How could you, Douglas," Mitsuki deadpanned. She deadpanned so thoroughly that it did not even sound like a question. "I trusted you."

Then she gave a little cough. The sound seemed like nothing in the wide-open silence of the room. The faceless paintings stared. Colors different. Every face the same. Staring endlessly without faces or eyes or souls.

"Bunny-senpai, don't we have better things to do?"

"Have you checked your inventory?" she said. Watched his face to see what sort of results her words would have. "Perhaps you have an item that might be used in this room."

That was pure BS. She just wanted him to chew on that for a while. Flip the supposed-protagonist role that he had claimed for her on its head. Shake down the fundamentals of the world!

In any case, it was not like she was being responsible or anything. Gods forbid. She just wanted to keep exploring. Also to keep raining on Akira's parade. That too. It was amusing. Teamwork - her opening new rooms, him investigating, and then her pooping on his party. Always pooping.

...

Forget that train of thought. Time to check out the next room. She moved to the doorway inside the council room and took a peek.

Leaking Worlds

Mitsuki mimicked slouching and adjusting a hoodie. All in all it just made her look even shorter. She put on as deep of a fake voice as she could. "I'm not saying this is your fault, but it's your fault."

Then she nodded. "Whatever you say, bunny-senpai!" She was as cheerful as ever. She ignored the odd feeling rising in her gut. She had had weird clams for dinner after all. Not because of the paintings, or the announcement that there were things in the gallery that were alive. Things that hated visitors.

Things.

No. If her stomach was queasy it hardly had anything to do with that.

She was an explorer now. A thrillseeker first and foremost. But not quite the "protagonist" or the "timeless hero" Akira kept bringing up. Not quite the timid girl that she usually was in public either. A fleeting thought - it would be funny going back to that.

"This really is realistic," she remarked offhandedly. Trees. Flowers. Plants. Real but not real. "You sure you don't want to stay here and have a picnic? Just don't touch anything and make miss artist extraordinaire angry!"

Or perhaps, the art itself?

But she did not wait for an answer before she bobbed over to the left side of the room to take a peek through the doorway.

Leaking Worlds

To get to the bottom of things, Akira suggested that they get to the top of things. As it were.

It made sense to Mitsuki. Although that might have been because skeevy oven paintings were hardly her style. Oven painting. Singular. One was enough. Not because they were skeevy. Mostly just because they were art. And art was boring.

That was a well-tread line of thought at this point. What was not well-tread - the stairs.

So she doubled back and headed up the stairs behind Akira. No extra noise. No extra fuss. French leave. Ciao (was that French?) to Rika. Ciao to Tsuki. Mitsuki even missed Mr. Class President philosophizing about art in the main gallery. Not that she would have paid much attention either way.

"Hope you've distributed all our skill points," she said, skipping up the stairs until she reached Akira's side. Pause. "Oh, and I didn't follow you 'cause you're the boss of me. You just happened to be smarter for once." She gave him a grin. It was mostly cheeky. "I'm sure it won't happen again."

Leaking Worlds

Not to interrupt. The description of the hall is located in the second post in the OOC section of this thread. CondorTalon mentioned that further descriptions would be added as exploration progressed.

CondorTalon said Reflection Hall: The hallway is reminiscent of the hallway of a funhouse; the paintings are narrow and as tall as the room itself. Each painting showcases a scene from everyday life, but the objects in the scene are placed as to resemble a human being. Pareidolia at its finest.

Leaking Worlds

Lots of things happened. Nothing that put up a good argument against her plan. Rika ran off down a hallway. The rollerblader fell on his ass. Akira entered the gallery as well, moving past her in the doorway. Mr. Class Rep gave up and told them that they were going in.

As if she had needed his permission.

"Whoo!" She rolled her eyes.

Mitsuki never did care about when to stop running her mouth.

"You know, it did say 'escort off the premises' and all," she remarked cheerfully as she wandered off after Rika. "So I'm sure our artist extraordinaire knows a way out."

Leaking Worlds

"Ugh," Mitsuki said. "I bet the others are having a lot more fun than we are."

The biker guy told her not to move. She moved. She crossed her arms and huffed.

She was a bit irritated. This guy was throwing his weight around because he was older or because his hair was having a hissy fit or something. Rika certainly had not listened and she was older if perhaps not wiser. Mitsuki certainly had no reason to listen.

Not as if she was going to touch anything. At least the artist girl had asked politely.

"Look. It's just a gallery world-thing. We don't know how to seal these places off, so let's just find this girl," she said as she gestured over her shoulder at the stairs leading up, "and get her to help us. Besides, we could use an artist!"

"What's your plan, class rep?"

Leaking Worlds

Mitsuki coughed as the chalk dust billowed into clouds.

There was nothing special in the desks. They were old and battered and had not been used in a long time. As the dust settled and Rika opened the other door, she bent down and caught one of the chalk sticks sliding on the floor. Rolled it between her fingers. Not very profitable loot. But loot was loot.

She perked up once the announcement played.

"Toodles!" she said.

"Looks like we found one of those world-things that we're supposed to seal..." She stifled another yawn. It was late at night. Even if the pinkish sky outside thought otherwise. And art was boring. But whatever. Time to make the most of it.

She hopped through the door, turning to face the others with her hands on her hips.

"Who's up for some exploring?"

Leaking Worlds

Room 1-6:
Haruka
Sho
Toby
Suzume

Room 1-1:
Yoriyoshi
Kozue
Mitsuki
Akira
Masato
Rika

Outside:
Shiori
Tsubaki

These are the groupings so far as I am aware.

Leaking Worlds

Mitsuki blinked.

Did Rika just call her Akira's sister?

"Right, but," she said, "see, he got dropped on his head as a baby - that's why he has really high self-esteem and he doesn't look much like me. We just keep him away from mirrors."

She nodded. It was a satisfactory explanation if nothing else.

"And duh, let's take them with us. Stalker-senpai, too-" She jerked a finger over her shoulder. "He'll probably follow us."

Of course, by the time she was done saying that the biker guys had forged ahead on their own. She jogged after one of them. Ended up peeking over his shoulder into room 1-1.

"Just an old classroom." She stifled a yawn. "Boring."

Then she edged past Yori and began looking in the desks for loot.